What's the Big Deal About the KJV? Part Two Reviewed

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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A few months ago, we posted a response, a rebuttal to the first in a series of videos that Sam Gipp is producing called,

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What's the Big Deal with the KJV? We said then, very high production value.

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In fact, this second portion really has almost no meaningful argumentation at all.

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I mean, on that level, there's nothing to it, but it's very entertaining. I mean, you got to admit, you just got to give

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Sam a good punch in the shoulder for a great job and doing good acting too,

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I got to admit. For example, this next, this just little clip right here,

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I think is, well, here, take a look at it. This is Dr. Gipp, one of my professors at the

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Bible College. I hope you don't mind if he joins us tonight. Oh, hey, thanks for coming,

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Sam. We've just been discussing some of the miracles in the Gospels in our group, so glad you came.

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Now, if they had such a thing as fundies, a fundie would be a prize similar to an

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Emmy or a music, a Grammy or an Oscar, okay? I think this would deserve a fundie.

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A fundie is an award for people who don't admit they watch TV. But this would deserve a fundie.

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I mean, I just, the hand thing and the, oh, it's classics, great stuff. It's just a shame it's being used in defense of the absolutely indefensible, because that's what

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King James onlyism is. In fact, I've come up with a new word watching this second installment.

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It's going to be a whole series. I guess there's going to be five or six or something, I don't know. But I've come up with a new word, and it's drare, drare, yeah.

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D -R -A -R -E, dogged repetition of already refuted errors, dogged repetition of already refuted errors.

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That's what King James onlyism is. King James onlyism has been refuted fully, logically, historically, factually, in every way it can be refuted for a long, long time.

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But King James only advocates just keep repeating the same already refuted errors over and over again, evidently hoping mainly just to try to keep the rupture from happening where so many of their people are recognizing that this is a completely indefensible system.

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And of course, it is important, because someone who believes what

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Sam Gipp is saying is going to be absolutely indefensible in the public square. I mean, they're just, people like that, when they go into universities, colleges, things like that, they have no means of defending themselves other than going into a pure mode of just repeating what they've been told and not interacting with the arguments that are being presented to them and things like that.

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So it is a very important thing. As I said, there's very little substance to this particular portion.

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What we do have is a section where Sam Gipp throws out a few textual variants where you have a verse that is in the

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King James, but it's not in the modern translations. This bothers a lot of folks, because they slip into the idea, well, the

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King James is the standard, and therefore these verses have been, quote unquote, removed. And it's easy to do.

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I do this all the time. I have, for a number of years, when I go into a situation where I'm talking about this subject,

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I will ask people in the audience to read John chapter 5, verse 4.

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Does anybody have an NIV, ESV, something like that here? You got one there? Okay, could you read me

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John chapter 5, verse 4? And then I stand there. And I stand there. And I start watching the look on the faces of the people who have those translations.

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There is no John 5, verse 4. Now, obviously, it's in the little teeny, teeny, teeny, tiny font print down at the bottom of the page, but it goes from 5 .3

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to 5 .5. And I then use that as an illustration of how textual variants take place, and this was a marginal note that became incorporated at a later time, and things like that.

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But it's very easy, if people aren't aware of biblical backgrounds, to really confuse them at that point, because they're going, well, as he says, well, they can't count up to 25.

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Well, actually, of course, the verse numeration system was developed in 1551, at least in the

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New Testament, the version that we have today. In 1551, in the printed edition of Stephanus at that time, and that's what stuck.

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And of course, that was based upon a Byzantine text. And so, it follows the, well, actually, the

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King James comes later and follows it. And therefore, when we discover that that Byzantine text had verses that simply do not have a strong textual basis, well, what are you going to do?

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Are you going to renumber everything? So, that all the old commentaries and everything else don't work?

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Or do you just put verse four in a footnote, you give a reference, people can look up the information for themselves, et cetera, et cetera.

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That's what the real explanation is. It's not a matter of not being able to count. It's simply a matter of how things have developed over history.

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But each one of these that he presents is an example where in, you'll notice the ones that he presented to us.

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In the Synoptic Gospels, you have a verse in one Synoptic Gospel that's not found in another, and later scribes tried to harmonize

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Matthew with Luke, or Luke with Matthew, or Mark with Matthew and Luke, or whatever else it might be. And these are examples of parallel corruption, where you have the exact same material.

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It's in another Gospel. Normally, it's because the scribe had memorized the longer version in the other

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Gospel. He's not, either he's trying to purposely, you know, harmonize these things together, or maybe not.

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Maybe it's because he's memorized it, and it just flows naturally. That kind of thing happens very often. Obviously, no explanation of this from Dr.

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Gipp, because he's not here to actually explain why these things are. He's here to inculcate in this video doubt and confusion in people's mind, so that they just default to the

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King James Version. It's similar to when Roman Catholics attack Sola Scriptura. They rarely defend their positive argumentation on this.

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They just hope you're going to default to Rome's position once you abandon Sola Scriptura. And so, he presents a few of those.

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Obviously, we've dealt with them many, many times in the past, especially I did in the King James Only controversy. But then he gets to the only real argument in the video at all, and that is where he gets the folks to read from the 23rd

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Psalm. Let's take a look at what he does. King James Bible. How about we just do it?

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How about we just all read? We'll read from all the versions you have. We'll read Psalm 23 in unison and see how it sounds.

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Okay? Now, before we read this, we all acknowledge from the

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Bible that God is not the author of confusion. The Lord is my shepherd,

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I shall not want. He makes me lie down in three pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul, he guides me in the paths of righteousness, even though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death.

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I will not be afraid, Lord, for you are with me, your shepherd's rod and staff's protector.

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You have placed a table before me in the sight of my intestines, and thou hast raised me from the coffin of the

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Lord. Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me for the days of my life, and love will be with me all my life, and your house will be my home forever.

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Now what one word best describes what you just heard? Now one of the arguments that Sam Gipp uses, and I've heard him do this in live presentations in churches and things like that, and so he's stuck it into this video here, is he will have people get out their different modern translations and read through a very familiar psalm, the 23rd

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Psalm. And of course, modern translations will differ from one another, from the King James.

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Some people have the King James, some people have the New King James. And by the end, people are at different places, they're saying different things.

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And what he does is he sets this all up by sort of sneaking in an assertion that most people never actually think about.

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And that is, he says, well, we know the Bible says God is not the author of confusion. Well, the

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Bible does say that. Paul said that to the Corinthians. But he wasn't talking about Bible translations, of course.

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He was talking about in the church, and he was talking about the orderliness of worship and preaching and presentation, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you could take multiple translations in a language that had not yet been invented when

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Paul wrote to the Corinthians, and when you read them all at the same time, it will not sound the same. And that somehow becomes the confusion that God's not the author of.

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I mean, that is an incredibly bad example of eisegesis, a complete misusage of the text.

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But because he just slips it in, it's amazing how many people go, wow, if God's not the author of confusion, and when we all read

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English translations and they sound different, then that must mean God's not behind this, and that must mean we need one

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English translation. Well, that's a bad use of the text, first of all. But it also illustrates,

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I mentioned earlier, this new word that I've come up with, drare, the dogged repetition of already refuted errors.

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And what you see in King James -only -ism is they never apply the same standards as the

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King James, but they apply to modern translations, and I'm going to give you an example of that. You saw in the video where the people sat around and they read the 23rd

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Psalm, and therefore the King James must be the one that God's given us because it came first and these came later and they've created confusion, right?

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But the King James wasn't the first Bible translation in English, was it? And so, if the

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King James comes along after other Bible translations, well then, if it created confusion by sounding differently than the preceding

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Bible translations, then it couldn't be from God, at least that's the argument Sam Gibbs using, and he'd be consistent, right?

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Because we all know that consistency is the mark of truth and inconsistency is the mark of a failed argument, isn't it?

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And so what we're going to do is I'm going to have Rich and Jamie come in here, come on in guys, and we have, we'll sort of squeeze in here, there we go, we're going to read the 23rd

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Psalm, except we're going to read from the King James, the Wycliffe Bible, and the

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Bishop's Bible. And the Bishop's Bible and the Wycliffe Bible came before the King James, and so there won't be any confusion, will there be?

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Okay, alright. Alright, you ready? Okay. God is my shepherd, therefore

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I can lack nothing. He will cause me to repose myself in pastures full of grass, and He will lead me under calm waters.

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He will comfort my soul, He will bring me forth into the paths of righteousness for His namesake.

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Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me,

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Thy rod and Thy staff be the things that do comfort me. Thou wilt prepare a table before me in the presence of mine adversaries.

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Thou hast anointed my head with oil, and my cup shall be brimful. Truly felicity and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of God for a long time.

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Thanks guys. Well, there you go. Evidently, since they don't read identically to one another,

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I guess the King James produced confusion, which according to Sam Kipp means it can't be from God.

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So now we have Sam Kipp telling us the King James isn't from God either. What are we ever going to do?

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Well, what we're going to do is reject really, really bad arguments when we see that they are really, really bad arguments.